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Sunday, 18 December 2011

Discontinuation of Scottish GENES

Hi folks,

In September of this year I launched a sister blog to Scottish GENES entitled British GENES, located at www.britishgenes.blogspot.com. My initial intention was to maintain both blogs, one for those with only Scottish interest, and one for those who may have interests further afoot in the British Isles, Scotland included. British GENES was created because I was receiving more press releases than I could make available on a purely Scottish platform, and I did not want them to go to waste. The new blog incorporates all the posts I make from Scottish GENES, however, pressures on time are now forcing me to make a change which may not be popular for some, in that I have decided to discontinue producing the same content on two different blogs. As such, this will be my last post on the Scottish GENES blog.

Please note though that I will NOT be discontinuing Scottish news! I will simply now be using British GENES as the main portal for all news from the British Isles, and have absolutely no intentions of reducing the amount of Scottish content featured - not least of which because I live and work as a genealogist in Scotland! As such, I would ask that if you have bookmarked the Scottish GENES blog, that you perhaps now consider switching to the British GENES blog instead (which incorporates all the blog posts on Scottish GENES).

As with Scottish GENES you can subscribe for a British GENES daily news feed using links found on the left hand side of the page at www.britishgenes.blogspot.com. If you have also followed Scottish GENES as a Google user, please do consider doing the same with British GENES - it's always nice to see who some of the readers are!

Whilst I know that some will be disappointed by this, it is worth pointing out that I have been covering lots of UK news on Scottish GENES in any event for quite some time, so the change will not be quite as drastic as may at first be perceived. My own ancestry is Irish and Scottish, and so these will be more than fairly catered for on British GENES, trust me! :)

For those who may not wish to follow through to British GENES, a sincere thank you for sticking with Scottish GENES since it was created at the end of 2007 - the blog itself will remain online as an archive of news from the last four years. Don't forget that you can continue to follow Scottish only news in my bi-monthly news column within Discover my Past Scotland magazine (www.discovermypast.co.uk), and my new History Scotland magazine genealogy column starts off in the January 2012 edition! (The Scottish GENES Facebook page will continue for the foreseeable future until I create a new British GENES page to take its place.)

For those who are happy to follow though to British GENES - onwards and upwards, as I have lots of ideas in hand for the coming months for features and other developments...!!! See you there!

I've been a reader of the Scottish blog for a long time & know it's a sensible decision for you but I will miss it! I know you do cover all of the British Isles (& it's greatly appreciated!) but do you think a different logo might convey that coverage better to attract more interest from Irish genealogists? Sorry! I know it's also a little bit political but may help you gain more readers & be less off-putting to others. Perhaps an outline of the British Isles? Regardless, I will continue to read your blog & thank you for taking the time to help all of us amateur tree shakers! Kate

Hi Chris,Sorry to see your Scottish blog go, but as they say "all good things come to an end".Would you consider adding tags to your posts such as "Scotland", "England, "Ireland", or "Boer War", or "Fife", then readers could click on the tags and see the posts relating to that topic.Tunji

Really sorry that this blog will go. I read it every day and truly appreciated Scottish news having its own place.Could you maybe have tabs on the homepage on the British one so that news for each "home" country is easy to find - maybe you already have this, I've not yet been over to see. Will go look now.G'Lass